Fun With Ouijas
by Night Monkey
Summary: The Joker shows up in Crane’s hideout on Halloween. Why? Because the clown’s picked up a Ouija board and he’s dying to try it out. Are any of Gotham's lost souls willing to speak?


I really wanted to do a Halloween one-shot but didn't quite finish in time for the holiday. I love the story and thought I'd put it up anyway. Better late than never and all that stuff procrastinators live by.

Summary: The Joker shows up in Crane's hideout on Halloween. Why? Because the clown's picked up a Ouija board and he's _dying_ to try it out.

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"What in the hell is that thing and what do you propose to do with it?"

"It's a Ouija board and we're going to look for ghosts with it. Do you want in, Spooky, or are you going to spend Halloween jumping out of bushes when innocent children walk by?" The Joker asked.

Crane snorted. "A Ouija board? Do you honestly believe something you bought for ten dollars at Toys R Us is going to open a portal to the spirit world?"

"It wasn't ten dollars, it was fifteen. And I'll have you know I bought it without shooting anyone. That's how dedicated of a ghost hunter I am." The Joker said.

"It glows in the dark. It's a toy." Crane replied.

"Fine. Harley and I are going to have fun this Halloween. You can stay here and play with your chemistry set."

"I have no problem with that. And stop breaking into my home! I have no desire to hear about all your inane exploits."

Harley Quinn waltzed into the room, a handheld camcorder out in front of her. The camera was obviously running, because Harley was narrating to it. She pointed it at the Joker, the skeptical Scarecrow, and the Ouija board the clown held.

"And tonight we're gonna be tryin' to make contact with the other side. What do you think is gonna happen, Mister J?" Harley asked.

"I think he's going to spend all night sending you perverted messages and blame it on ghosts." Crane said.

The Joker growled. "I would never do something like that! All right, maybe I would. There's only one way to find out."

The clown tore the lid off the box and threw it on the floor. He then removed the board from the box and looked for a handy place to set it up. Crane's coffee table, piled high with various books and research notes, looked like the perfect spot. The Joker swept all the books and papers off, littering the floor with them. The Scarecrow's fists clenched and he barely avoided shouting in outrage.

The Joker picked up the planchette, and examined it. "This is made of plastic. I thought they were always wooden. They are in the scary movies."

Crane picked up the discarded box and turned it upside down. He thrust it at the clown. "It was made in China. Even if there were ghosts, which there aren't, why would they shame themselves by appearing in a cheap device assembled by a thirteen-year-old girl working for a dollar a day?"

The Joker didn't see any problem with where his supposedly magical board came from. He shrugged, accepted the plastic planchette as a more modern take on a classic, and sat down on the floor. Harley turned out some of the lights, apparently to set the atmosphere and make the ghosts more comfortable, and then took her seat. Crane stayed standing and continued to hold onto the empty box.

"Come on, Johnny. Sit down so we can begin channeling the spirits." The Joker said.

"I'd really rather not. I generally try to avoid things featured heavily in horror films. For instance, I never copulate with teenage girls while killers with chainsaws are running loose. The same thing goes with Ouija boards." Crane said.

Harley batted her eyes at him. "Please, Professor Crane? The more the merrier."

Knowing he would regret it when the first message about undressing appeared on the board, Crane sat down. He reluctantly took a corner of the planchette, and Harley and the Joker did the same. Then they waited for the restless dead to make contact.

The ghosts obviously weren't feeling chatty at that particular moment. After several minutes of tense waiting, the Scarecrow removed his hand from the planchette. "I sense a lack of spirit activity."

"It's your negative energy. What kind of spirit would want to talk to someone as grouchy as you?" The Joker asked.

"We've been here for five minutes, holding a cheap piece of plastic and expecting it to suddenly move on its own. There's something very wrong with three adults wasting their time with such a thing."

"That's exactly what I mean! Cheer up, Spooky. You're offending beyond the grave." The Joker said.

Crane rolled his eyes. "All right. One more minute of this. Then you can take this garbage outside and talk to the dumpster and hobo spirits in the alley."

The Scarecrow took hold on the plastic planchette again. Willing himself not to just toss the thing across the room or pitch it out the window, he waited for the Joker to start screwing around. It was only a matter of time before the clown decided the ghost of Booboo the Nose-Picker was in desperate need of a friend.

The planchette twitched beneath his hand. Crane looked at his companions, scouring their faces for any sign of deception. Harley looked genuinely surprised and was focused heavily on the planchette. The Joker was smiling, but he couldn't really help that. His mouth seemed forever frozen in that sick grin.

There was subtle movement and the planchette began to glide across the letters and numbers printed on the board. Crane let his hand be pulled along. He wondered if the Joker was merely being an idiot or if one of them had fallen victim to the ideomotor effect. His bet would be that the clown had gotten bored and was now going to talk on the behalf on the dead.

"What's it saying? We should've gotten a pencil or somethin' to write the letters down with." Harley said.

Crane studied the plastic piece as it shuffled around the board. "I can keep track of the letters in my head. So far, it's paused on I-W-A-N and T. And now it's moving again."

"What do you think it's tryin' to say?" Harley asked.

"'I want something", and I have a strong intuition that something is going to be a sexual act." Crane said.

"You think it's the ghost of a molester?" Harley peeped in fear.

"No, but I think your Pudding is." The Scarecrow replied.

The Joker's hand abruptly left the planchette. "I don't like your insinuations, Spooky. I'll prove it isn't me."

The planchette continued to move seemingly on its own accord. Crane had to admit that he was taken back. He would have put money on the Joker simply being an ass.

"I want a second, cha, chance." Crane said, following the letters revealed by the possessed plastic.

Harley gasped and even the Joker looked a little confused. The Scarecrow began to wonder if he wasn't the one with the Freudian hand. According to many psychologists, Ouija boards and other examples of phantom writing were merely the subconscious mind of one or more of the participants making itself known. Perhaps his repressed thoughts were bubbling to the surface via this game.

"I'm gonna ask it a question. Mister J, want to hold the camera for a while? You got a better filmin' angle." Harley said.

The Joker accepted the camcorder and aimed it on the board. "Okay, let's see. Mister or Miss ghost, why do you want a second chance? Didn't you have a good life?"

"No." Well, that could still obviously be his subconscious talking. Crane didn't like to dwell on the past (mainly because it made him madly depressed) but he would never claim life had been easy for him. He'd been someone's punching bag for a majority of his existence, including three days ago when he'd had a run-in with Batman's bird sidekick. He given the kid a blast of fear toxin directly to the face, but that didn't take away the bruises he currently wore underneath his shirt.

"What happened to you?" Harley asked.

"Killed." The Scarecrow didn't have enough experience with spirit-writing to draw any conclusions. He certainly wasn't going to believe a ghost had infiltrated his lair just to talk with a bony scientist and a pair of clowns, not over a few words on a game board.

"I'm going to ask it something. Would you like to see me naked?" The Joker asked.

The planchette bucked wildly, like a horse desperate to escape restraint. Harley's hand flew off, and Crane nearly pulled back out of shock. He was now alone holding the planchette and it was rebelling under his hand. This had moved out of the realm of psychological research and straight into the Twilight Zone, if any episodes of the old show had ever taken place in the secret hideouts of wayward doctors.

"Now who's offendin' the spirits? Huh, Puddin'?" Harley asked.

Curious over what would happen, Crane lifted his hand from the planchette. It didn't drop stone dead as he had expected, but raced to a pair of letters. It jigged back and forth between them, doing madly quick laps.

"No, no, over and over again. I can't say I blame this entity or whatever it is." Crane said.

"That's the coolest thing I ever saw. We have to sell this footage to someone. We'll make a killing." The Joker said.

"Who would want it? It isn't like there's a black market for dancing planchettes." The Scarecrow pointed out.

"I bet Wes Craven would buy it. Is that man who made those zombie movies still alive?" The Joker asked.

"Look at the board. It's revealin' the answer!" Harley gasped.

"Yes. And it's right. George Romero is still around, all though he's older than God." Crane said.

"What's the capitol of Portugal?" The Joker asked.

The Scarecrow seemed to have become the official reader. "Go look it up."

"What? I'll kill him, the impudent little-"

"Puddin', he's all ready dead." Harley soothed.

"Oh, right. Okay then. Ghost, tell me, who was President in 1847?"

The planchette finally went still. Harley inched closer, as though the plastic triangle was a wasp she had swatted but perhaps now yet killed. The Joker seemed annoyed that the spirit did not intend to tell him whom the people had elected a hundred and fifty years ago. Crane looked plain baffled. Ghosts did not fit into his life's equations and neither did game pieces that moved themselves.

"How much is a share of Wal-Mart stock worth? What's the best flavor of ice cream? Is there really a Santa Claus?" The clown inquired.

The Ouija board spoke no more. "Idiot, it's not going to just answer random questions. It's _dead_. Sit on the sofa and let me do it."

"Who were you before you died?" The Scarecrow asked.

The planchette rose from the dead with far more vitality than the average zombie. It skipped across three letters. "Cop. And I take it you were killed in the line of duty?"

"Yes. And was the person who killed you brought to justice? Are they rotting in prison?"

"No. Is the identity of the murderer known?"

"Yes. Was it a mob murder? Did you get in the way of a crime family?"

"No? Then was it one of the costumed villains that roam this city?"

Almost before Crane had finished asking, the planchette leapt into action. "Yes. Was it me? Did I kill you?"

"No. Good then. Was it the Joker?" The most logical choice really. He was the reason for most of the names on the marble monument dedicated to officers who had fallen in the line of duty.

"Yes. Thought so. And what would you like to see happen to him?" Crane asked. _Please let it be something ugly and painful. _

The Joker dropped the camera, hopped off the couch, and gathered up the Ouija board, possessed planchette, and the cardboard box both had come in. Despite Harley's squawks about her camera, and Crane's demands he put the Ouija board back and let the conversation continue, the clown opened the sole window to lair and threw the Ouija board out into the night.

"Mister J, why'd you do that? This camera was nice and now the lens's cracked!" Harley wailed.

"Do you not realize the magnitude of what we were witnessing? Contact with the dead! We, I, were talking to the restless spirit of one of your murder victims!" The Scarecrow shouted.

"I don't want to talk to that guy anymore. If you two do, go get that voodoo board, walk down to the cemetery and look for a fresh grave occupied by Detective Robert Something Long and Polish. And don't ask him any more questions about me or I'll shoot Spooky in the knees and leave him for the rats." The Clown Prince said.

"Bastard." Crane muttered darkly.

"How'd you know it was Robert Somethin' Long and Polish?" Harley asked.

"He's the only cop I killed since escaping from Arkham, and let's just say he needed a closed casket funeral." The Joker replied.

"Idiot. There are two groups of people you never actively set out to kill: police and children. That brings the public outrage, and cops are far more prone to shoot if you've murdered one of their own." The Scarecrow said.

"That's funny. I didn't know you were a murder-ologist as well as a loser, a nerd, and a sack-headed bag of bones. Why don't you put that all in your résumé and hand it out around town?" The Joker said.

"I hope you fall in a well and die." Crane said.

"I hope the Wicked Witch of the West sets you on fire."

"I hope you develop inoperable testicular cancer."

"I hope you spontaneously combust into a million pieces."

"You don't spontaneously combust into a million pieces, fool. When you combust you burn, you don't shatter."

While the two men argued and postured, as men were prone to do, Harley looked wistfully into the cracked camera lens. It was one thing for Mister J to break his own things, which he did often and with much enthusiasm, but why couldn't he leave hers alone? She had really liked this camera; it zoomed so well you could count individual nostril hairs from across the room.

"Just hope he didn't break the tape." Harley said. She ejected the tiny cassette, looked it over, and couldn't detect any major faults. At least it hadn't spewed out its filmy guts, like an old VCR tape.

Trying to ignore the increasingly dark names Crane was throwing at the Joker and the equally stupid names Mister J was throwing back, Harley went to look out the window. She wanted to see if she could spot the Ouija board down among the general alley trash. The not-so-innocent game had piqued her interest, and a part of her did want to drag the Scarecrow down to the bone yard so the séance could continue in an even creepier atmosphere.

Something moved in the general blackness of the alley. Harley blinked several times, sure her eyes were playing tricks on her. Then the shape, hardly perceptible among the background, shifted again. There was no mistaking the movement, not this time.

"HELP! It's the ghost and he's comin' to get Mister J an' drag him down to Hell!"

Both villains froze in mid-shout and pivoted around to face Harley. She pointed desperately at the window. Nothing was there except the ratty curtains teased by the breeze.

"Harl, are you having an episode because I don't have any meds." The Joker said.

"Are you sure it wasn't just the wind? In a city, air currents are unpredictable." Crane said.

"It wasn't the wind it was a big, black shape! A shadow-person! We gotta call the real Ghost Hunters." Harley said.

"They wouldn't come to Gotham. Someone would kill them, dump their bodies, and steal their equipment." The Scarecrow pointed out.

"Then we'll kidnap 'em and bring 'em here." Harley said.

"What did this big, bad spook look like, Harley?" The Joker asked.

"It was big, black, and sort of flappy and billowy like a sheet on a clothesline." Harley explained.

"Like a sheet… Or like a cape?" The Scarecrow asked.

The three rogues exchanged nervous glances. Without waiting, Crane broke for the door. He was gone, his footsteps fading out into the hall. He escaped just in time; the door had barely swung shut when the window exploded.

"Don't take his soul Mister Ghost! There really ain't much there and whatever is probably stinks!" Harley wailed.

"I don't want his soul; I want to know who this belongs to." Batman held out the Ouija board.

"It ain't mine. Mister J threw it out the window because we were talkin' to a dead cop with a long Polish last name." Harley said.

"Right. Tell that to the shrinks at Arkham. I'm sure they can do something about it."

Several minutes, a gunfight, an exploding chicken, and a horrified exodus of neighbors later, Batman dragged a handcuffed Joker and Harley Quinn from the premises. She was still raving about some angry spirit, he about how the ghost of Robert Something or Other was going to get his ectoplasmic ass kicked. The two clowns had both come down with phantom psychosis involving a dead cop and a Ouija board that actually made contact with the deceased. Batman, not for the first time, was thankful he just delivered the loonies to the bin and didn't treat them.

Crane stayed in the shadows until he was sure the Bat-mobile was blocks away. Then, as silent as a ghost, he crept back to his now-revealed hideout. The place had been nearly destroyed by the short and fierce battle the clowns and Caped Crusader had waged. Bullet holes pierced the wall in several places, a large portion of the ragged carpet had been blasted, Harley's beloved camera lay in ruins and most of his furniture was either overturned or smoldering. The only thing untouched by the concentrated chaos had been the Ouija board.

"Happy Halloween, have a nice death Robert. By the way, if you would like to haunt the Joker, you can find him in Arkham Asylum, probably in solitary confinement. He'll probably kill someone before the night's over, so at least you'll have company."

Without waiting for any ghostly whisper or Ouija revival, Crane stepped toward the door. With his hand reaching for the knob, he suddenly froze. Halloween night was still relatively young and the festivities wouldn't be complete until the Scarecrow sowed his yearly crop of terror. He turned back toward the Ouija board. It no longer had its planchette, but a little detail like that could easily be overlooked by a man overtaken by fear.

Yes, indeed. Ouija boards, even without ghosts to guide them, were regarded with suspicion and fear. It would be insightful to see what this board spelled for someone in the grips of Crane's toxin.

"Hope you don't mind, Robert. I believe I'll keep this."

Tucking the folded board under his arm, Crane strolled from the apartment. It _was_ a wonderful night to go haunting.

THE END!

A bit late for Halloween, but meh. I enjoyed it, always wanted to write about Ouija boards and Halloween, and I am now satisfied.

And for all the fans of _Nerd_, my other fic, I'm half-way done with the next chapter. Soon it will be done. Soon!


End file.
